|
Post by Gwen Bloomsburg on May 18, 2010 11:09:32 GMT -5
By now, you're familiar with the major division of conflicts in literature (and, perhaps, in life)--internal and external. What conflicts do you observe in this novel? What predictions, if any, can you make about how these conflicts will develop or be resolved?
|
|
|
Post by Melissa Messler on Aug 22, 2010 19:58:27 GMT -5
This novel's main conflict is the plague of blindness, which makes people act like animals, that create basic human instinct to survive. This is why another conflict occurs between the people and the who is said to be "leader" of the this new society. He carries a gun to let the people know that they should do what he asks and thats when it all starts to go wrong. Women begin to get raped, people start starving because of lack of food and little by little they start dying. The doctors wife, with the advantage that she can see, kills the man with the gun. Even with no one to control these people there is still the conflict of the doctors wife taking care of these people. This is why she sometimes mentions that she'll rather be blind than see everything thats happening. Its very hard for her to bath them, feed them and take care of them every single day, but she still does it because she knows its the right thing to do. A few of these conflicts could be solved or were solved except one, being blind. That is something that could never be solved but could be developed in time. They could learn every single day on how to walk, eat and live without seeing. Luckily the main conflict resolves because the blindness is lifted and everyone gets their sight back after months of not seeing anything.
|
|
|
Post by kgabela on Aug 26, 2010 20:53:16 GMT -5
In the book blindness we can found different types of conflicts internal and external, main conflicts and minor conflicts in which each character worries about something and has a different conflict. For example the doctor’s wife conflict is that she isn’t blind and sees everything that happens around her and can’t help everybody she desires to be blind. The little boy conflict is that he wants his mom. The other blind people worries are that food isn’t given fairly to everybody and that they would die. The blind doctor conflicts is that he worries that all the rest of the people discover that his wife can see and start using her as slave asking her help all the time. All that minor conflicts are internal conflicts because they are their desires, worries or emotional problems that the characters are facing in that moment. But the main conflict and external is that a blindness epidemic appears which doesn’t haves a cure and doctors cant control it neither the government. Everybody is afraid of getting blind the military start to use violence for blind people don’t get near to them and there is when many people start to die. Other problem is the struggle for survival the condition that the blind people live aren’t good the lavatories are dirty, there isn’t enough space for all the blind people, some need to sleep in the ground. Also there isn’t enough food they pass hunger fight for food. I think the resolutions for this conflicts would be that a cure will be found and they will be able to see and that will solve all the problems. Because the epidemic of blindness is the main conflict and all the other conflicts are a result of this big one.
|
|
|
Post by kgabela on Aug 26, 2010 21:03:40 GMT -5
In the book blindness we can found different types of conflicts internal and external, main conflicts and minor conflicts in which each character worries about something and has a different conflict. For example the doctor’s wife conflict is that she isn’t blind and sees everything that happens around her and can’t help everybody she desires to be blind. The little boy conflict is that he wants his mom. The other blind people worries are that food isn’t given fairly to everybody and that they would die. The blind doctor conflicts is that he worries that all the rest of the people discover that his wife can see and start using her as slave asking her help all the time. All that minor conflicts are internal conflicts because they are their desires, worries or emotional problems that the characters are facing in that moment. But the main conflict and external is that a blindness epidemic appears which doesn’t haves a cure and doctors cant control it neither the government. Everybody is afraid of getting blind the military start to use violence for blind people don’t get near to them and there is when many people start to die. Other problem is the struggle for survival the condition that the blind people live aren’t good the lavatories are dirty, there isn’t enough space for all the blind people, some need to sleep in the ground. Also there isn’t enough food they pass hunger fight for food. I think the resolutions for this conflicts would be that a cure will be found and they will be able to see and that will solve all the problems. Because the epidemic of blindness is the main conflict and all the other conflicts are a result of this big one. karina Gabela
|
|
|
Post by jorgelara on Aug 26, 2010 21:28:40 GMT -5
each novel needs a strong conflict so it can develop. The novel major conflict is the epidemic blindness that arrives and strikes citizens. this conflict is the one that transform the novel; it makes each character have their own problems too. The internal conflict for this novel will be blindness itself because it cause an emotional change in characters. For the external conflict you need an internal; blindness is what causes the external problems such as: the army getting involved, lack of food and water, insufficiency of shelter for every blind person and quarantine itself. all this problems make characters have their own personal conflicts, as an example the biggest problem a character will have in the novel is the doctor's wife because she is the only one that isn't blind. this doesn't sounds as a conflict but it is one for her because she has to fight to keep the blind people safe. I guess all conflicts could be solved by solving the major conflict which it is blindness. blindness takes lots of time for doctor's to find a cure or even the human body to find a self-defense mechanism against blindness.
Jorge Lara
|
|
|
Post by dome ayala on Aug 27, 2010 23:21:47 GMT -5
The conflicts that the characters in this novel have to face are really real and painful, but this conflicts are caused by the typical human reactions which mainly start when one of the blind interns threatens everyone with a gun. He takes power of the one thing everyone needed the most, food. He gathers a group of people to follow him with this cruel idea of taking advantage of the others and taking away their rights of eating. He goes as far as to the point were he asks for woman and not only rapes them but treats them as if they were worse than animals. This behavior starts to affect everyone and the morally of the human being is each time less and less. "We are no longer the same woman as when we left here" (pg. 182). They have been treated in a way that no woman should be treated by man who were no longer humans, they were desperate animals. Things didn't became much better after the doctors wife killed the man with the gun. They still needed to face the lack of interest from the government that will not support them with anything because of the fear they have of getting blind. Still they acted in a way that was not only morally incorrect but also so selfish that was even capable of thinking of killing every innocent person inside that asylum. After fighting all the injustices the interns faced, they got out from the placed they were locked in. When they got out they realized that everyone had gone blind and that every person was fighting each day so that they will not starve to death. Everyone was acting like animals and only thinking of themselves. The own human interest was taking over themselves and was making things worst. The only person who could see this catastrophes was the doctors wife which made her the only eyes who could see the mess the world has turned into. One way they could of at least try to solve one the conflicts was to get organized and help each other out. Solidarity always leads to good things and what people needed was to be kind with each other and get organized as best as they could. It was a difficult challenge, of course, but it was not impossible and it would of made things easier.
|
|
|
Post by ricardoperez on Aug 28, 2010 18:07:40 GMT -5
The novel's biggest conflict is blindness. The weird epidemic that killed everyones sight and that is destroying peoples life. Blindness is devastating the city because people don't know how to life with it and there is only one person, the doctor's wife, who can help them live. The city is having trouble with all the food people need and they don't know how to control this issue.
Another conflict is the discrimination they are getting from the Government because they fear to get blind. They are not getting all the help they need and the government is being really selfish with them. They could give them all the necessities they needed, but the didn't because of fear of getting this disability.
Ricardo Perez
|
|
|
Post by mariapaulaborja on Aug 29, 2010 15:38:26 GMT -5
In Blindness there´s a lot of conflict going on. Starting by the main conflict which was this weird epidemic that made everyone blind, blind people usually see black while in this epidemic blindness was white. This problem brought many inside minor problems within the population. The few people that remained with sight misstreated the blind and left them isolated with any type of care. Also trouble inside the hospital; people were desperate and struggled for food, husband and wife relationship had fights because the husband felt that he was being treated like a baby with the woman being the only one who could see, the husband being unfaithful. Most of the problems were solved at the end of the novel, when people start getting their sight back, but still my predictions are that there will still be trouble because the city is destroyed, economy is a mess, and there is few left of people´s daily life. That will take a long time to solve.
|
|
|
Post by Estefania Jervis on Aug 29, 2010 16:16:22 GMT -5
When I began reading the book Blindness I thought that the conflict was simply this disease that started infecting everyone in the world, but after analyzing the different reaction and the way that this disease affect people I got to the conclusion that the real conflict in this story is not the disease as a simple physical disadvantage. On one hand we can see that this disease of “white blindness” starts to affect the entire world. People can’t find their homes, families separate, no food, entire countries paralyze and no one can’t see nothing but a “white milky sea”. (pg. 3) But this is a superficial blindness. As the doctors wife say, "I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see" (p. 292). The blindness wasn’t just physical. It occurred because of how humanity is reacting towards life now-a-day. How our society is living, being blind to so many things we have, as nature, simple things, love. Our world has become full of selfishness, individualism and materialism which are affecting every single people’s life.
Estefania Jervis Dávalos
|
|
|
Post by cbenitez on Aug 29, 2010 20:05:44 GMT -5
Inside the novel you can find many internal conflict on each character situation. For example the struggle of the doctors wife is to dont be busted because she is not blind. Or the man with the gun controls the food supplies so the rest of the people is in caos and fear. But this internal conflicts are caused by the main and external conflict that is BLINDNESS and CAOS!. Everyone in town and supostly in the world becames blind and nobody can explain why this directly cause caos and fear in the people so everything became a mess. Mainly the caos starts when the " blinded" people are taken to an isolated place with no chance of hope and posibility to re-adapt to society. This cause the caos inside.
|
|
|
Post by claudiaricaurte on Aug 29, 2010 20:29:38 GMT -5
The novel external conflict is clearly the epidemic of this so called “white blindness” which forces people to develop their animalistic side, and the instinct of survival that creates many internal conflicts. In this mental asylum where the blinds are interned, this instinct of survival and human needs causes the conflict between the people and their new leader, who carries a gun. People are forced to give up their entire personal belongings, and when there is nothing left to exchange for food women get raped, which leads to the doctor’s wife taking action and killing the man with the gun. On the other side there is the conflict of the doctor’s wife not being able to tell the blind that she is the only one that can see for a weird reason that she does not understand. If she tells them, people would want her to help them with every single thing and it would be a chaos, and on the other side it is very hard for her to be the only one who can see and still not be able to take any action in helping the blind. Outside the mental asylum when they escape, is the problem of food and shelter. People need to keep together in groups and find food so they can survive the epidemic, they also need shelter and a place to stay but since anyone has the ability of seeing they can never return to a place and are constantly finding a place to stay. In all this external conflict is each individual’s conflict that they face with everyday for example the boy that needs to find his mom etc.
Claudia Ricaurte
|
|
|
Post by ralbornozr on Aug 29, 2010 21:24:18 GMT -5
The main conflict is the “white blindness”, which is the epidemic that infects the entire city, but I believe that in the novel, Saramago uses the “white blindness” as a metaphor to talk about humanity and the reaction people have towards situations. Externally, how issues affect everybody and brings out the good and bad in people, how individuals are indifferent against circumstances that don’t involve them. The lack of hospitality given by society, the absence of the government towards the blinded. Internally, each character struggles with their own preoccupations, desires, and insecurities; which end up being their weapon against others.
Rafaela Albornoz R.
|
|
|
Post by carolina on Aug 29, 2010 22:01:08 GMT -5
The main conflict of this novel is blidness. This epidemic is spreading and everyone is becoming blind. This is the external conflict were you can see how people change depending on the sircumstances, how they become good or bad. This main conflict causes many internal conflicts in the lives of all the people involved with this epidemic. This destroys this people´s lives because they become isolated from society. There is lack of sheltter, food and water, the army gets involved and all the blind people are treated badly and locked up in a mental hospital. People start to be negative and no hope is left.
Carolina De Sucre
|
|
|
Post by vlopez on Aug 29, 2010 22:04:55 GMT -5
The conflicts on this novel are easy to determine. In my point of view the plague of blindness is the main conflict. This plague show the way human beings can be so vulnerable to hard problems and the way government can be so careless and discriminative with their own people. Another conflict I could find in the novel was the way people can start acting as animals and desperately fight for food and get to the point that they could kill for it. How the world can be destroyed and the reaction that a simple disability can affect the whole population. Maybe these conflicts can be solved just by preparing the people and being intelligent enough to control and organize people in some way that everyone has food and to cover basic needs. Valentina López
|
|
|
Post by Melissa Vorbeck on Aug 29, 2010 23:21:48 GMT -5
The main conflict throughout the whole story is the spreading blindness. Among others are space, food, and violence. The original blind and infected citizens are put in a vacant mental hospital where space is evidently an issue. As more and more people come in, they enter into a state of crisis, not knowing what to do with the increasing number of infected. Inside this chaotic hospital there is a group of men who want to take over the blind population, and threaten to kill anyone who does not give them valuable objects. The exchange for this is food. After a few days, the men got tired of being alone and asked for women. This created conflict between everybody because, obviously, they did not want to send their wives out to be raped. More conflicts arise when they escape from quarantine. There is not a single person in the city, besides the doctor’s wife, who is not blind. This lead to no electricity, no running water, no food, and no news. The whole city was chaotic. Blind people were desperate to find food and a place to sleep, and often ended up alone and could not find their way home. I think time would be the only way to resolve this issue, if they had not gotten their sight back. There was nothing else they could do except get used to being blind and get to know their surroundings.
|
|